OCTOBER 2004

Wimbledon the Movie: Hollywood's Unforced Error

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First the good news.

Nobody got killed or maimed; there weren't any over-the- top explosions and the car scenes were civil enough. Plus, Universal's fall offering, Wimbledon, offers us a modest dose of laugh lines and puts tennis - the good, the bad and the wacky - up on a snazzy big silver screen pedestal for the whole world to absorb.

In fact, Wimbledon gives us a full range of familiar characters. We meet a nearly washed up journeyman, who's been beaten up by a modest career on tour, an endearing Henman-like hunk from proper, but squabbling, British stock. His nemesis, the villain is (surprise, surprise) none other than a shaggy-haired American who echoes the snotty rebeliousness of John McEnroe at his super-brat worst.

Our heroine is Kirsten Dunst (as Lizzie Bradbury) - who looks suggest a shorter, fully Americanized Maria Sharapova. Alluring in Wimbledon whites (or in bed) Lady Lizzie has a more-than-sassy mouth and plenty of 'tude that she's not afraid to unleash with the ferocity of an overhead at match point. We soon discover she's an eager-for-love/hungry-for-success climber who shamelessly delivers the McEnroe-like line, "What are you talking about? The chalk flew up!"

Tracking and smothering her at every point is her control-freak "dad from hell." As our love match proceeds, we also meet an exceptionally obnoxious club owner and some of his sex-starved almost elderly female club members, plus a love-to-hate-'em caricature of a money-grubbing agent who shamelessly plays every angle. Plus, we see a flailing Murphy Jensen and many media figures playing themselves - Mac, Evert, Carillo and the proper Brit John Barrett.

But, sadly, early in the first set, it's evident that Wimbledon is little more than a popcorn flick with cookie-cutter ("where's-the-imagination") characters and a script filled with limp clichés. So, we're told that "love means nothing in tennis," (duh!) and "what's rough about this game is there's a winner and a loser." Our star frames a string of unforced errors such as "Yesterday I was nothing. Then I saw you," and tells the world "Lizzie Bradbury is why I'm here." At least Lizzie has an edge as she informs her new friend, "You need to screw me by the final."

And while Wimbledon's cinematography is sharp and fast-moving, the tennis scenes are about as believable as a radar gun at a USA Davis Cup match. It's not just that the Wimbledon semi is held on Court No. 2 or that the No. 111 player in the world wins Wimbledon or even that the whole place has a way-too-bright, Hollywood hue, instead of Wimbledon's soft symphony of color: i.e. the All-England Club's subtly-toned, subdued tea party palate.

Worse yet, again and again we see our McEnroesque villain fail to capitalize on the most elemental of putaway shots even a 3.0 hacker would handle with no-brainerease. Just as boxing movies need to get their boxing right, a tennis movie needs to nail its action scenes. But despite great enhancement, computer wizardry and super-slow motion, the tennis just doesn't ring true. Sadly, even more than the implausible on-court action, we get nonsensical revelations of mid-match self-talk and unbelievable plot turns, such as a second week Wimbledon getaway to the British shore (which is at least an hour from SW19). We find an injured ballboy becoming an inspiration to our hero who actually clamors up an ivy to get to Lizzie's boudoir.

At one point, Dunst, defends her mid-tournament love affair, by telling her gatekeeper father, "Sorry, daddy, I really needed to do this." Likewise, we guess Hollywood really needed to do a big-time tennis film, so they focused on a player with a ranking of 111, which come to think of it, might be a fair enough year-end ranking for this oh-so- disappointing unforced error.

.- Bill Simons

 

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